Undocumented Stories

“Undocumented Stories” is a campaign to create a platform for undocumented university students to share their personal stories in the context of a broader American immigrant story. Since the issue regarding undocumented immigrants is highly politicized, the approach of the campaign was to simply create an open dialogue by inviting both American citizens and immigrants to start conversations about their own individual histories in the United States. By establishing understanding and perspective, “Undocumented Stories” aimed to create an attitude of change and initiative in order to find positive solutions regarding the issues surrounding undocumented immigration.

The focus of “Undocumented Stories” revolves around storytelling, and thus the communication materials were designed to prompt conversation. Since sharing personal stories involves transparency and vulnerability, transparencies work as a key design characteristic of the campaign in an effort to compel audiences to see past and break down barriers. In addition to bus ads, posters, t-shirts and buttons, tangible transparent materials were incorporated into elements such as quarterly booklets with stories and transparent image spreads, brochures with transparent bookmarks, and notebooks with transparent covers.